NEWPORT — Several years of efforts to get Newport designated as a “World Heritage” site fell short recently when the city failed to make it onto a federal list of nominees to be submitted to the United Nations.

Late last month, the U.S. Department of the Interior announced that it had replaced a long-stagnant list of potential nominees with the best of a new batch of proposals. While 14 sites won a place on the revised list, neither of two Newport submissions made the cut.

For now, Newport won’t be joining such renowned and iconic foreign attractions as the Great Wall of China, the Acropolis and the cathedral of Notre Dame, nor such American attractions as Yosemite National Park and the Statue of Liberty — all World Heritage sites. There are only 20 in the U.S.

A committee of local leaders and preservationists had crafted two proposals for Newport. One touted the city as a Colonial seaport that gave birth to religious freedom. It featured such sites as Touro Synagogue, Great Friends Meetings House, Colony House and Redwood Library. The other highlighted Newport’s fame as a Gilded Age resort for the rich and powerful and included many of Bellevue Avenue’s most famous mansions and buildings.

Jonathan Stevens, who helped spearhead the effort as a former aide to Sen. Lincoln Chafee and now as the city’s economic development director, admitted to disappointment yesterday. However, he said, the announcement did not come as a complete surprise.

“We are working with the National Park Service and they have a certain momentum toward more conventional nominations,” he said. “It was kind of an uphill battle.”

He took some consolation in the decision to include the Colonial seaport proposal on a list of sites for “future consideration.” In a sense, he said, the idea “was embraced.”

“That allows us to keep going,” he said. “They essentially challenged us to keep working and keep refining.”

In a news release, however, the Interior Department made no mention of Newport or the “future consideration” list. It describes only the list of 14 sites that will be nominated by the United States and sent to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, which oversees the World Heritage program. The last list was produced in 1982.

These sites, the releases states, “can be considered over the next 10 years for formal nomination by the United States as World Heritage sites.” The list was slated to be submitted to UNESCO at the beginning of this month.

The cultural nominees include civil rights movements sites in Birmingham and Montgomery, Ala.; Ohio locations where the Wright Brothers pioneered aviation; Mount Vernon, George Washington’s Virginia home; the prehistoric man-made embankment at Ohio’s Serpent Mound; and various buildings nationwide designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Natural sites include Fragatele Bay National Marine Estuary, American Samoa; Okefenokee Wildlife National Refuge, Georgia; Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona; and White Sands National Monument, New Mexico.

Pieter Roos, chair of the Newport World Heritage Committee, said that Newport was fortunate that the Colonial seaport proposal was spared the reject list. That gives hope that it could some day make it off the “future consideration” list and onto the nominee list, particularly if UNESCO is not supportive of the other nominees.

“It’s a complicated process,” said Roos. “In essence, we are being encouraged to pursue it and refine it.”

Stevens said the Gilded Age attractions were apparently shunned because they are not thoroughly original since many were modeled after the great chateaus of Europe. Newport’s role as a birthplace of religious freedom, however, is unique, although not widely appreciated.

The proposal, said Roos, is a “little bit of a victim of Rhode Island’s Colonial history not being well known,” such as those of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.

The other issue, said Stevens, is that the sites are spread out around the city. The federal government, he said, apparently had some difficulty with the concept since it wasn’t a single site, such as Mount Vernon.

“I think over time we are feeling good about where we landed,” Stevens said.

Jo Yellis, a representative of the Newport committee, inquired about whether more publicity would be given to the “future consideration” list.

“The Newport World Heritage Committee very much appreciates your recommendation of Colonial Newport as a site worthy of future consideration for the U.S. Tentative List,” he wrote. “Since we don’t know how long it will be until any further action is taken, we were wondering if it would be possible in the meantime to post the list of the ‘future consideration’ sites on the [National Park Service] website. It would be very helpful to us — and, I’m sure, to all the applicants in this category — to have some formal recognition of our efforts and of our nomination’s future potential. This will enable us to move things forward and to generate additional support. In short, it will help us keep the flame alive.”

An official with the Interior Department’s Park Service said that it would be put on the Web site in the near future and will be included in a glossy publication of the nomination list next summer.

rsalit@projo.com